Pierre Lacroix was using a cane at Joe Sakic’s retirement news conference today, but the Avalanche president considered that a major step forward. For several weeks after he had complications following knee replacement surgery, he was bed-ridden or had to use a walker.

“My health is getting there,” Lacroix said. “The last eight to 10 days have been good. There are worse things in life. I just had a surgery and complications and was on the sideline for 65 days, so I got to know all the afternoon shows on television.”

Lacroix said the problems were in his thigh and quadriceps muscle. “I started to bleed and the doctor didn’t know for what reason,” he said. “When the quad bleeds, the knee can’t do the flexion, and it’s one thing after the other. Then you need to take some strong medication in order to stop that bleeding and dry up the blood in your leg.”

Shortly after the Avalanche finished its disastrous regular season, but right before he underwent the knee replacement, Lacroix made the decision to fire his one-time protégé and his successor as GM, Francois Giguere. During his post-surgery struggles, he brought in Patrick Roy to talk about the coaching position and perhaps also adding the GM title. Eventually, he decided to promote Greg Sherman to GM in a partial front-office housecleaning. Coach Tony Granato and his staff also were fired, Lake Erie coach Joe Sacco was promoted to head coach, and his staff will include former Avalanche players Sylvain Lefebvre, Steve Konowalchuk and Adam Deadmarsh.

“In the last few years, I was behind the scenes a lot,” Lacroix said. “Because of results of the last season and all of this, I said we’re going to sit down and I’m going to try to help put hopefully the right formula together. I’m so proud of the trademarks of this franchise for all these years, and that was the goal. But you don’t make the calculation that your surgery is going to turn out that way.”

Lacroix said the Avalanche’s recent moves, including the trade of Ryan Smyth to Los Angeles last week, is a repeat of what happened at Quebec after Lacroix took over as GM in 1994.

“We’ve hired young coaches, a prominent AHL coach,” said Lacroix, who hired Marc Crawford out of the AHL in 1994. “We scheduled our payroll in the direction where we were giving our youth a chance to grow. We surrounded ourselves in ’94 with two of the top centermen, in Peter (Forbserg) and Joe, for years to come.

“If you’re looking at what we’re doing right now with the Paul Stastnys and the Matt Duchenes and the young goaltenders we’ve drafted, this is the same thing. We’re doing a photocopy of what we did in ’94. And we need the fans to support that.”

A graduate of Wheat Ridge High School and the University of Colorado, Terry Frei has been named a state's sportswriter of the year six times -- three times each in Oregon and Colorado. He mainly covers college football and hockey for The Post. He's the author of seven books, including the novel "Olympic Affair" about Colorado's Glenn Morris, the 1936 Olympic decathlon champion.

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